CC Minutes 05-14-2012 Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
lot of different opportunities. It allows for a lot more flexibility of programming and also allows us to
have a lighter footprint on the land without creating a huge art center or a huge nature center. We instead
of have 5 very low touch shelters like this. And then the fourth point that I'll bring forward, and again as
I said there's a lot more detail to it, is that we wanted to separate the idea of camp from not camp. Right
now as kids move from one end of the camp to the other they have to walk past the administration
building. Across the parking lot. Sometimes merge with the traffic that's coming in and out of there.
The dumpsters are right there in view and then they finally move through a long area out to the adventure
course. We wanted to feel like once you came to Camp Tanadoona, whether you're coming for the day or
coming for the week, once you came in you were there and you didn't have to deal with garbage and
beeping trucks and you didn't have to deal with, if you were in residential camp, the sort of twice daily
pick -up and drop off of the day campers. So our way to do that is essentially to create a new Tanadoona
path. A main walkway which you can see on this map is the long brown line. It slides farther back into
the forest and then that is separated from the entry drive. You see the gray line coming in there with the
circle on the end of it. A new administration building is what sits at the end of that. The dining hall is
existing which is the next building further on, so you can see there's a separation by both buildings and
landscaping of this pathway which is the camp from the circulation routes which are not and as you enter
camp in one of three points, either into the administration center, through a residential camp gateway, or
through the day camp gateway, once you pass through that gateway you're within camp and you stay
within camp. You don't have to cross a road. I'll show you what that looks like more schematically.
This is a Phase I diagram but you can also see the brown line of the Tanadoona path separated from the
main circulation way. So those are the four again key pieces of the master plan. There's a lot of, oh I
killed your slide show there but there's a lot of other things. I'm going to turn it back over to Marnie and
certainly if you have questions after that I'll be happy to answer them.
Marnie Wells: Alright, thanks Adam. Of course I've seen this power point and this master plan for now
a long time and many, many times and I still am very excited about this. I just want to just remind
everyone, everyone has a role to play in this. Talk about it. Come out and visit us. Ask lots of questions
tonight. Tomorrow. I'm always looking for an excuse to get out of my office and walk through Camp
Tanadoona and stand down by Lake Minnewashta so please see us as a resource. Certainly we want to be
a good neighbor and I invite you to come back out for a little field trip so thank you so much for allowing
us to be on the agenda tonight. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for Ms. Wells? All we can say is thank you for coming this
evening and for sharing your plan with us. It looks very exciting and we wish you every success.
Tanadoona has been a part of our community for decades.
Marnie Wells: Yes.
Mayor Furlong: 88 years and we'd like, we like the commitment that you're taking in terms of
reinvesting back into that for the next 88 years.
Marnie Wells: That's right. That's right. Well thank you again.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you very much. Anyone else for visitor presentations this evening?
RESIDENTIAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENT (PUD -R) AMENDMENTS: REQUEST TO
AMEND THE FOLLOWING RESIDENTIAL PLANNED UNIT DEVELOPMENTS:
ARBORETUM VILLAGE, HIGHLANDS AT BLUFF CREEK, AND LIBERTY ON BLUFF
CREEK. APPLICANT: CITY OF CHANHASSEN.
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Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
Kate Aanenson: This item for PUD's, Residential PUD's appeared before the Planning Commission on
April l 7 and so this is the first set of PUD's that you're going to see. We've got these grouped into six
and I want to go through a little bit of the summary of the PUD's. What we're doing and give you a little
bit more background on that so I think that will be helpful. This will probably be the longest presentation
but you'll be seeing a series of six of these as we go through the PUD's. So the summary of the PUD's is
the City's done some of these types of processes in the past and we're the actual, we're the initiator of this
process and actually we spent over a year doing the research for all these PUD's. There's upwards of
3,000 lots involved in the PUD process. The City's done this sort of thing before in the past. You may
recall we actually permitted all the non - conforming beachlots so we went back in time. Did the research
on those and permitted those. Most recently we went back and fixed all the commercial and industrial
PUD's so this isn't new to the City. It's a pretty involved process but our residents are appreciative of the
process and the feedback we've got so far so again we divided them into kind of what made sense as far
as the types of developments so this first one that you're seeing tonight is probably the most straight
forward in the fact that they're the most recent PUD's that we've done and so the fix wasn't so great. So
we have had neighborhood meetings. To date we've had two neighborhood meetings on ones that you'll
be seeing in the future. Again the purpose of the PUD, legally if they're over 5 acres for the PUD City
initiative we don't have to have a neighborhood meeting but certainly want to apprise people and give
them the information. Take a lot of phone calls but what I wanted to share with you is what we put on our
website so we've been able to address a lot of our resident's concerns by putting together this website so
I'll go through this in case there's anybody watching at home too but this is our home page. So if you
were to go over here is the PUD's so just go to that page and it's very detailed. Each of the ordinances
put out there so we gave some background, frequently asked questions and I'I1 just go to that because we
did put that in our staff report and why are we doing this. You'll notice the recent, the more recent
ordinances have been tied back to underlying zoning districts. Sometimes they're silent on maybe the
impervious surface or the like so the PUD's that were created in the 1980's and 1990's reference design
standards. Sometimes they're following a development contract. Sometimes they were found in the
minutes so for the staff, if someone wanted to add on or something it was very cumbersome to try to find
that, and especially someone who's trying to sell their property. Someone wants to make a decision to
buy a piece of property. They want to know if they can add on so for us by going through and codifying
it, it makes it easier for the homeowner in going to the future or someone buying a piece of property to
know that. In addition prior to 1980 there were no design standards for, or no development contracts
existed so it's difficult to find some of those 1970 subdivisions and again during the 1970's anything over
25 lots had to be a PUD so people were forced into this tract. As you recognize we don't do low density,
single family PUD's that often anymore. Really what we believe that the best use is if it's a mixed use
product where there's a couple different types or where we're trying to solve like a commercial or
industrial where we're sharing impervious surface or there are reasons to kind of use that tool but for a
standard subdivision it's our least choice. So with that putting together the frequently asked questions,
you know will my taxes increase. You know will this affect, require me to upgrade our home. We've
talked to a lot of our residents out there and we found some people that were the original owners of their
houses, you know 35 years so that's been really interesting to learn so no. We're not going to make
anybody come into compliance. We found, we bring aerial photos of all the subdivisions so we find back
in the 1970's and 80's when these were built, back then, things have changed but if you can believe this
you know people pulled a permit and the inspection for the lot lines may or may not have occurred.
There might have been additions put in without a building permit. It is what it is out there. We're not
going to make anybody fix anything and we haven't in the past but what it does provide for is someone
buying the piece of property, we always work our residents if they want to pursue a variance, if they're
not affecting something that's non - conforming, there's always an opportunity to examine that issue so
we've communicated that. Again as I explained the benefits of rezoning are the fact that they know what
they have and what they can't do. We have found some people that have historically used a benchmark,
that tree and they find out oh, my neighbor's deck is right on my property line so we've kind of had those
communications and kind of opened up dialogue in the neighborhood which I tend to be good at so, but
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Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
so far I think we've learned a lot out there and people looking at maybe showing at the neighborhood
meetings we do have the computer there showing our residents how to find this information, in addition if
they haven't used the County's website, how to get information about their own property on the County's
website so we always like that opportunity to kind of meet with the residents. Again as I stated there's
over 3,000 lots that are in the PUD's. If we can, if we can put it into a straight zoning standard like the
Residential Single Family, a straight zoning district I mean, we will do that and we are accommodating
that in some of the subdivisions. They meet all the criteria so part of the background is, on the other
subdivisions, ones you're seeing tonight aren't going to be that way. They're a little bit smaller but we
find the smallest lot. You know kind of make that the, that's the minimum and so the standards are a little
different for each subdivision so you can't, we don't want to make too many non - conforming. We kind
of take the common denominator to make that work so, and also explain to our residents, things have
changed since when they built their houses. Now we check, we do as -built surveys. We learned that
through problems where we've had people not follow that and grade. Cause water to go onto a
neighboring property, sometimes resulting in litigation. We've also checked for hard cover, so some of
those things that are now done you know a little bit more thoroughly so it's kind of a good starting point
to do this and it's a good opportunity, like I said. We spent a year last year putting all this together and
now we're going forward with that. So with that, I was just going to show you one other thing on the
website. So each neighborhood has kind of grouped out here so they can read their own neighborhood,
what their ordinance is for their neighborhood. For example you're going to see this one tonight but
there's the ordinance right there of what they're getting proposed. It's highlighted what we're changing
so a lot of the people we were able to take care of their questions over the phone and when they kind of
understand that they're grateful. Think that makes sense so it's been very helpful to we think convey this
in a planning side that put this together and it's been very helpful. I think again we try our best to let our
residents to kind of be able to navigate through this on their own. We've also had the code book out there
because people have, during these meetings have often asked us can I do this? Can I do that? We have to
kind of figure out where they are so it's been a great opportunity again to connect so with that Mayor and
council, that's kind of the background. Now I'll just kind of go through the staff report.
Mayor Furlong: Mayor, council, before Kate moves ahead. Her staff did a fantastic job of doing all this
research and it kind of gets back to our mission statement providing for today and planning for tomorrow
and that's what Kate and her staff are doing here is planning for tomorrow. You know trying to make a
unified ordinance for everybody to live by. Right now some are silent. Some are different than other
ones and we're trying to bring everybody into compliance and so everybody understands what rules
they're playing under here so I just want to personally thank Kate and her staff for taking this big task on.
Most people would just avoid it and deal with the issue as it would arise and so not Kate or her staff.
They grabbed it. They're turning it into a positive. A way to connect with the neighborhood. Explain to
them how the ordinances work and why we have certain ones and it's just been a positive experience so
far so thank you to Kate and her staff.
Kate Aanenson: Thank you Todd. Again I think it is helpful to kind of, if we can take away some of
those roadblocks or what appears to be different standards. That's what we're trying to resolve so it
makes it easier for the development. I think once people understand that, they're very happy with the
process and we certainly know our realtors that are out there are very appreciative because it speeds
things up in the process when someone's trying to list a piece of property so. The other thing I wanted to
mention and Todd kind of touched on this a little bit too is that people today when they're buying a piece
of property spend a lot more time doing due diligence so if there's any ambiguity in a piece of property,
they can't find the documents, it really causes a lot of, for the person trying to sell and the buyer and we
don't want that so I think by bringing a lot of clarity to it, it speeds up that process too so. So with that
we have three ones. Three PUD's that we're looking at tonight. There was a fourth one and that was
Mission Hills. That was actually tabled. The applicant asked us to spend a Little bit more time by having
their attorney look at that and that had to do with the commercial part of it so the first one is Arboretum
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Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
Village. So this is off the corner of Highway 5 and 41. A little bit of background on this. This was done
in 1990, it was case number 1999 -2. I know it was approved in 2001 so there's 342 units on 60 acres. If
we can go back, there was a lot of density transfer there regarding some of the areas that was upland,
detached from a large wetland and actually goes over across the street in front of Westwood Church.
That's part of that nice view kind of coming through that wooded area as you go to Camp Tanadoona or
Westwood Church so the density was compressed to the middle of that area. Again what we changed on
this was pretty straight forward. This one we did not have a meeting on these three because the changes
are so minor. What we did is we incorporated into, they were in the development contract. We put them
into the ordinance, the design standards so it was pretty, it's pretty minute so the owners of course were
notified. Anybody in the HOA was notified but not all 300 residents of that. So again we looked at what
the setbacks would be. Kind of put the denominator in based on the product type and then, excuse me
then so that's the main changes we made in that. Any other little nuances. So again it's easy to find.
Anybody looking at a piece of property. Again I just want to point out too, these are the least flexible
type products that we have when you do a PUD because most people don't live in a condominium
association don't usually add on a porch or they may screen something in. The most fluid ones we have
would be a larger lot like Springfield we have a traditional single family home, that's when you have the
most opportunity to add on and some of the complexity goes in. So the next one would be Highlands on
Bluff Creek and this also is kind of just located north of the, or just right and adjacent to the Arboretum
Village. So this one was approved in 2004 and it has 16 units. Again minor change in there. We qualify
the minor lot, minimum lot size. Sometimes what happens is someone does want to make a little minor
change. They can acquire a piece from another property if they can do a minor lot adjustment so we put
those in there and the design standards. So it would tie back into the R -8 zoning district so anything the
code is silent on, if you want to do a home occupation, so the referencing by that allows people, people
ask those kind of questions too so it gives you that underlying reference for that too. And then Liberty on
Bluff Creek was case number 2005 -11. Approved in 2005. That has a total of 444 units and that was not
built out yet. Again the owners were notified of that in the HOA. Again the design standards were
incorporated into this project. Again this is a right application of the PUD where we did some transfer.
Compress the density. Preserve some of those green spaces and then we have 4 different products up
there so again the architectural standards were put in and they're all attached into them but they've made
modifications on those so those are all pulled in there so they're easy to find again when the properties are
sold or the HOA decides they want to go back and re -side or something like that, what was the standards
that were put in place. Now certainly when it's a PUD and if they wanted to come back let's say in 10
years and they wanted to re -side or something and they wanted to amend those standards, they always
have that right to come back to you and say we'd like to make some changes certainly to the PUD but it's
all into that ordinance and that's how it would be accomplished. So unless there's specific questions what
we have in front of you tonight then would be the revisions. We did a strike out but then there's Findings
of Fact for those and then we also put together an ordinance for each of those PUD's so with that I'd be
happy to answer any questions that you might have. •
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilwoman Ernst.
Councilwoman Ernst: Thanks Kate for all your work on this. I guess one of my questions is, is how did,
what was the reaction at the neighbors? Was it favorable? Not favorable?
Kate Aanenson: Yes, yes. Very favorable. A lot of people had kind of fear of the unknown of what we
were trying to do and a lot of people recognized, especially when those houses built in the 70's and 80's,
there may not be permits on some things. It is what it is. What's out there is out there so again if
someone wanted to add on, we would look at that on a case by case, just like we would anyways to go
back and try to figure out what they're estimate, you know see what their hard cover is. Some people are
over and it is what it is so we'll just try to work with them, our homeowners and we, the people that
showed up I think were kind of expecting that we were going to try to clean up. No. We were not trying
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Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
to do that. We're just trying to make it easier for everybody to understand what they had so when they do
come in and want to make some changes, because over time people are going to, the new buyers are
going to maybe want to look at some additional changes or those sort of things so I think they've been
appreciative of the process that we're going through.
Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you. The other questions that I had is on the Mission Hills. I noticed that
on these that you highlighted, those were the changes that were made, correct.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah.
Councilwoman Ernst: But in Mission Hills there were some, all the highlights in there were struck out.
Kate Aanenson: Mission Hills actually we are not going to do tonight.
Councilwoman Ernst: And that's why it was struck out?
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, that's why it was struck out, yeah. Yeah, then we attach the original staff report
instead of pulling that part out. Mission Hills also includes a small piece that was neighborhood
commercial or that wanted to make sure we weren't doing any changes. We said in the comp plan we
think it might be difficult to accomplish but we're not going to change that so I think they just wanted to
make sure through their legal counsel that that was, they understood what we were trying to accomplish.
That we weren't trying to take that away from them so.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay, thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions for staff? Again thank you for the effort for this.
Kate Aanenson: You'll be seeing more.
Mayor Furlong: And being able to connect and also to clean things up. I agree with Mr. Gerhardt, you
know rather than just waiting til things come up to us and react, kind of set, start with a clean slate and
here's where we are and we can go forward and everybody playing by the same rules so I think that's
helpful. If there are no other questions for staff, any comments or concerns over what's being proposed
here? If not, if there are other comments or if someone would like to make a motion.
Councilman McDonald: I'll do the motion.
Mayor Furlong: Mr. McDonald.
Councilman McDonald: City Council approves the attached ordinances rezoning the following Planned
Unit Developments: Arboretum Village, Highlands at Bluff Creek, Liberty on Bluff Creek and adopt the
attached Findings of Fact.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none we'll
proceed with the vote.
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Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
Councilman McDonald moved, Councilwoman Tjornhom seconded that the City Council approves
the attached ordinances rezoning the following Planned Unit Developments: Arboretum Village,
Highlands at Bluff Creek, Liberty on Bluff Creek and adopt the attached Findings of Fact. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS.
Mayor Furlong: Council presentations this evening.
Councilman Laufenburger: I have one.
Councilman McDonald: I got one.
Mayor Furlong: Are you guys comfortable with who's going first?
Councilman Laufenburger: Mr. McDonald clearly.
Councilman McDonald: I was just going to bring up the fact this past weekend you know the Rotary held
their annual Tulip Festival. I believe that's right isn't it?
Mayor Furlong: It was Saturday night Jerry.
Councilman McDonald: Well, no I just wanted to.
Mayor Furlong: Oh the Tulip Festival, yes. Tulip Gala. Yes.
Councilman McDonald: Tulip Gala, yeah which you know the Rotary takes this opportunity to recognize
an outstanding citizen of the community each year that's voted upon by all of the civic organizations and
governmental organizations within the community and I guess what I'd like to say that this year is that
Tim and Ginger Mulcrone were our winners. Tim was a policeman in Minnetonka. Spent a lot of time in
the community you know gave back a lot to the community through Rotary Tree House. Well the Rotary
Club with you know eradicate polio so he's been all over with that. And Ginger is just as big a go getter
again. You know she's been involved in a lot of activities and I think that it was really good because
again what it showed is that we do have people within the community that really believe in giving back to
the community and I think that all of these people who have been recognized over the past couple of years
really are a credit to our community. The other thing that was interested, and I'm sorry that Ms. Wells
left but that was the charity this year for Rotary and within about 20 minutes we raised $13,000 in just
donations from the floor and the Rotary was going to match that with another $10,000 so I think that
that's going to help them go a long ways toward hopefully getting their vision and improving Camp
Tanadoona so again I'm quite proud of what the Rotary does each year especially for giving back to the
community but it was a fun time had by all and really want to thank everyone who came out and
supported it and look forward to it again next year.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you. Councilman Laufenburger.
Councilman Laufenburger: Well there was, thank you Mr. Mayor. There was another event that occurred
this weekend, I don't know that it'd have the lasting significance that the Rotary Tulip Gala did but the
Chanhassen Red Birds did have their home opener this weekend on Sunday and it was, they played
against the Gaylord Islanders and they won. If you hit F5 I bet it will go. Yeah, they played against the
Gaylord Islands and beat them 8 to 4 and we have a few pictures. Here's Bun Walker opening the,
greeting people as they arrive. We have new helmets this year and new jerseys that are in place and we
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Chanhassen City Council — May 14, 2012
also had bat boys out with us on Sunday. It was Mother's Day by the way and this next one is these are
the two sons of our new coach, Derek Nelson. Quinn on the left, Ian on the right and of course we open
every game with the National Anthem, sometimes performers, live performers. Justin Kurth, a
Chanhassen boy was the starting pitcher. Zach Swenson who I think actually worked on the City staff for
last year if I'm not mistaken. We also got some new talent. This is Mike Cerjance who is a Chanhassen
High School player and here at number 2 is Jeff Pavlovich. He just hit a triple and scored on an error. Of
course the bat boys were in play this week and there's Derek Nelson, number 13 celebrating the very first
victory in his illustrious career. We do have some games coming up. This Friday night we have the
rivalry game with our neighbor to the south, Chaska Cubs and that's at Athletic Park at 7:30. The 19 we
cross the river. 101 is open now by the way Mr. Mayor. We cross the river to Prior Lake, 6:00 p.m. and
then on the 20 we travel west, another time zone away to Arlington and then our next home game is
Wednesday, May 23 We host the Carver Black Sox so the Red Birds season is well underway. We've
got some exciting promotions coming up. We'll have a July 4 game again and on July 7 we will have a
game honoring both the city employees from Chanhassen and Victoria, encouraging people to make the
route through the detoured roads between Victoria and Chanhassen and we'll have the Mayor and mayors
of both Victoria and Chanhassen throw out the first pitch so exciting season for the Red Birds. We're
underway and we're 1 and 0. You can't win them all if don't win the first you know. Thank you Mr.
Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Excellent, thank you. Congratulations to the team and the new manager.
Todd Gerhardt: And all the mothers in attendance.
Councilman Laufenburger: And the mothers in attendance, that's correct.
Mayor Furlong: Any other council presentations this evening? Great, thank you.
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor, City Council members. Just a quick update on our inspection program. We
kicked it off this last Saturday and some preliminary numbers. We did 58 boat inspections on Saturday
and 35 on Sunday so we're doing inspections at Lake Ann, Lake Susan and Lotus Lake so Volt is our
contractor that oversees and staffs the inspection program so we contract with Volt Temporary Services
and they've guaranteed us their best staff at all the inspection points here in Chanhassen. The County is
also doing inspections at Lake Minnewashta and they also started this past weekend. I'd also like to
thank Riley- Purgatory -Bluff Creek Watershed District for their contribution. This has just been a great
collaborative effort through the DNR and their grant program. We received $7,750. $25,000 from the
Riley - Purgatory -Bluff Creek. The City's contribution towards this just for the inspections was $10,000
and just to update you we have not have to invest any other capital dollars. The DNR's been gracious to
work with us on signage and stenciling and also the Lotus Lake Homeowners Association did make a
contribution of $2,000 to start early inspections so that was very nice to see and we got an early start on
the inspection program because of that donation and we expect to see some additional money from them
in the future to try to cover those hours Monday through Thursday and so I did get a phone call from
Laurie Susla today thanking us for outstanding job in coordinating the inspections so that was nice to hear
too.
Mayor Furlong: Good.
Todd Gerhardt: I'd also like to thank the editor of the Chanhassen Villager, Richard Crawford for the
excellent coverage he's given AIS in the paper and just some great articles there in educating the public
which is another key element in making people aware of AIS. So we're definitely getting the word out
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